I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-“Horses” (1991).

I have mentioned the Rheostatics a lot.  I’ve even talked about this song in Melville.  And yet it works so well as a companion to this book.

It starts slowly enough, a simple acoustic guitar with the lyrics:

Word came down and it crashed through my door
From the twenty-first floor
I was thinkin’ about leavin’ early for lunch
When he told me to shut off my press
His face turned green and his white shirt was wet
Like he’d just seen an accident
We threw our masks into a pile, the trucks pulled away for good

The band kicks in a slow beat  as the song builds:

A bus pulled in and I waved at it
Before I knew what it was
We ran in its tracks chasing its tires
But the gates had been riveted shut
I looked for the foreman; his number was empty
Up to Red Deer to stay
We gathered some signs and we sparked up a fire
Gordie got burned on the high-voltage wire

A quick intense bridge:

The first thing she’ll ask me is: “How did it go today?”And I’ll tell her.

The song builds in intensity with some wild screaming guitars until finally settling down to the quiet beginning

I thought there was strength in a union
I thought there was strength in a mob
I thought the company was bluffing
When they threatened to chop us off
Ah, these guns will wilt the winter will seize
And all the bonfires will go out
The company knows when they can afford to be bold
I wish I could, I wish I could, I wish I could

All along the ringing repeated chorus: “Holy mackinaw Joe! (Holy mackinaw).”

I’m not sure if this references a specific event or not.  (Surely someone can tell me that).  But you can listen to it here.  Or, find any of the live renditions on youtube.

There’s an interview with Dave Bidini of the Rheos who tells the interviewer that he also used to do music interviews.  And once he interviewed Neil Peart who, after much chatter, asked Dave if he knew the song “Horses” by the Rheos.  Dave humbly said that he wrote it.  And Neil said that on their last tour he used to come off stage and listen to “Horses” at full blast.  (And that’s how they got Neil to play on the Rheos’ subsequent album).  Neat, huh?

[READ: Week of July 16, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [Sixth Letters]

Insurgent Summer is till moving along, but the insurgents have been quiet lately.  I hope the insanity of these letters and invocations of the devil will bring up the chatter.

Yarostan opens his letter with the most heartfelt emotions.  And yet, anyone who thought (as I did) that there might be some kind of rekindling of romance between the two will be sorely disappointed:

I’m embarrassed by your declarations of your love for me. I can’t honestly tell you that I feel or ever felt a similar emotion toward you. I failed to make this clear to you at the very beginning of our correspondence, at a time when I was nothing more to you than a one-time friend you hadn’t seen in twenty years, a stranger to whom you hadn’t yet bared the secrets of your life. My only excuse is that I’m not in the habit of expressing my emotions with words; my life’s experiences haven’t been fertile ground for the development of such an ability. I realize that by trying to be honest and complete at such a late hour I’ll be inflicting pain which I could have spared you if I had made the attempt sooner, but I’m afraid that if I remained silent I would ultimately inflict far greater pain (411).

He explains that Mirna’s come around about Sophia.  She compares her quite favorable to her brother.  But most of that is because of the events of the last few weeks, which had been some of the happiest they have had together.  And if only he had written then, because now, after the last three days, everything has collapsed, and he has to write a very different letter: “For the past three days I’ve been moving in an atmosphere of hostility and fear the like of which I haven’t experienced since the days immediately after my release from prison three years ago” (411).

But first let’s talk about the good times.

The students in Yara’s class danced in the courtyard, and Jasna was excited to dance as well.  She was free and loose like she had never been before.  And Yara pleads that they have a dancing party!  Yarostan says he won’t dance, but Yara remembers how Mirna told her that when Yarostan cam home, she would dance and frolic with her.  And for a split second, Mirna is transformed into a happy young lady dancing with her daughter.  Until the dance ends, and she is immediately reminded of Vesna.  And the weeping begins.

But before we learn about Vesna, we get a visit from Zdenek to tell them all that a full-fledged strike has taken place at his factory. They invite him to dinner to celebrate.  He asks Mirna is there’s any chance her factory will strike and she says never.

There’s some arguing that night but mostly it’s good times for all. And then the following night, it’s even better times; Mirna says her factory spent the whole day talking about a strike.  She says a vote needs to be unanimous–twelve years ago they talked of strike, but not everyone agreed–those who voted to strike were fired.

She is so excited, that she agrees to Yara’s dance party.  It was a pretty big blowout with music and dancing.  Yara and Julia and Slobodon; Mirna and Zdenek and Jasna.  Even Yarostan, refuser of dances, agreed to dance with Jasna.

And then Slobodan brought the party to a halt when he turned on the radio which blared:

…UNDER THE PRETEXT THAT OUR POPULATION IS OUT OF CONTROL. MILITARY MANEUVERS HAVE BEEN OBSERVED IN… (420).

All you have to do is make love to the Queen of the Peasants–a woman slightly older than Luisa but less experienced.  That  single act on your part will destroy religion and morality, the family and the state (435).

‘Your brother loves you,’ she told me. ‘You’re his only girl.’ she told me. And then she asked, ‘Would you like me to pretend to be your brother?’ I begged her to pretend and I lost myself pretending. I drowned in happiness pretending. And my happiness drowned everyone I loved, Jan first of all (437).

Holy cow!  Now, how is Sophia going to respond to a batshit crazy letter like that?

Well, interestingly, she’s not.  It just happens that she’s not home when the letter arrives because she has spent the last week in a “‘commune” inside the occupied university” (455).  And this whole letter is about the occupation and the strike that is taking place around the area.  And Sophia is happier than she has ever been (thank goodness she didn’t get Yarostan’s letter). In fact, the tone of this letter is vastly different from the others, she is confident but not cocky.

The commune has been constructed in the old university building (yes, the one that Daman had his strike at).  And this is not just a student uprising: “Employed and unemployed workers, beggars and prostitutes, street kids, are all suddenly bursting with life, they seem to be animated by a single purpose” (455).  And Sophia feels alive as well, like this is what it must have been like thirty-two (!) years ago when that first uprising took place.   She’s also convinced that this is nothing like their experience twenty years ago.

The beginning of the occupation came from students.  And, as with the previous “strike,” I’m not entirely clear what the students are all that upset about.  Sophia describes it as, “students occupied a university building simply because they’d had enough of a lifeless present and a prospectless future” (456).  That seems pretty surprising to me. Especially since “they simply sat in and started to talk” (456).  It’s hard to belive that anyone took them seriously.  But that seemed to set off a chain reaction. Other students occupied a building and then workers occupied a factory.  Sophia thinks the revolution is on the way.

Sophia is in one of the offices and she’s in charge of distributing information.  Not like a newspaper, but answering questions and talking to people.  Tina pops in, and the printing is done in Ted’s print shop.  In fact, the whole garage crew is there (except Vic and Seth, and Jose who was killed three years ago [!]   Man, this timeline is confusing!).  Tissie had been in a prison “hospital” for the heroin, but they secured her release.

But let’s step back a bit.  After Sophia went to the “Project House” she realized that she needed to get a job. Sophia called Luisa to keep her updated.  They are both very cold to each other, although Luisa herself sounds very happy.  After they hung up, Sophia didn’t talk to her again for SEVEN YEARS.

So, she applied for a no experience position (she didn’t think her garage apprenticeship would count for anything).  And she got what sounds like the single worst job in the universe: work in a fiberglass factory.  And the job beat her down.  She was resigned, defeated, with no hope of pulling herself up.

She was there for three years!  There’s horrible talk of people’s lungs giving out on them, and of Sophia losing her appetite because everything tasted of glass.  Her plan was to save up enough money so that she could quit working.  And so she rented a room in a fleabag hotel and ate basically nothing.

But then things changed.  Sabina and Tina were waiting for her on her stoop.  They would have waited in the room, but they couldn’t stand the giant rats that were sharing the room with Sophia.  The long and short of it is that they came to rescue her (if she wanted, of course).  They had just bought a really cheap, run-down house, but it was very large. And it is full of beautiful furniture (they knew people in the moving business, so they had the trucks stop by their house and they took what they want–the rich suckers didn’t even miss their stuff).   [I disapprove of this, I must say].

They take her out to a fancy dinner (which of course, she doesn’t enjoy because of the glass).  And at the dinner they reveal that Jose was arrested in a raid of the garage.

Sophia went to visit him and he seemed like a changed man.  So she took the opportunity to finally feel like a teacher, rather than a pupil.  She made lists of books to bring to him (and they magically appeared on her desk every couple of days).  Finally he was released and then a few days later he was dead.

But back to the present and Sabina.  She and Sophia went on an evening outing to the lake.  They talked and talked.  And during that night they pieced together a lot about the stories that George Alberts told them and that Manuel told Yarostan about the uprising.  And they conclude that they were at the same event, just on different sides.

I admit that following this debate about the various armies and weapons was difficult.  I understand the general premise of what happened, but following the particulars was quite confusing, especially since none of the sides had names and people disagreed about who the rebels and who the insurgents were.

We hear again about Alberts and his wife Margarita (who was 14 when she gave birth to Sabina!).  And how after she died, he ran out to join any army that would fight the force that killed his beloved revolutionary.

The one thing that is clear is that Alberts never turned away from technology (which Yarostan has turned against).  But once again, Sabina gets one of the best lines.  Luisa had called Yarostan a reactionary after his first letter,  but Sophia argues:

When you call someone a name, you stop listening to him. Luisa hasn’t heard anything for thirty years. Yarostan is no reactionary. He’s trying to tell me something that conflicts with my most basic axioms. I think he’s wrong but I’m not sure.  I’d like to be sure before I call him any names” (473).

Feeling generous, Sophia gives Luisa a call in hopes of talking to Lem Icel to set the record straight.  Sophia knew that he had been involved in the “peace movement.”  After yelling at Sophia for some time for not calling her (this was after she had been “kidnapped” by the police), Luisa agrees to take Sophia to see Lem.

Before we get to Lem, we also get a mention of Art Sinich, who has also been part of the peace movement.  Art’s friend owned the estate where Lem currently lives.  It is now an abandoned house.  And Lem has hair down to his behind, and he is smelly and disgusting and blissfully happy.  Lem says he doesn’t take anything that isn’t from nature (except for his father’s money which is paying rent and for food delivery).

After seeing how the hippie lives, we get to the meat of the matter.

Sophia asks him about his arrest.  When Lem arrived, he says he didn’t know how to get her letters to anyone, so her went to the police (assuming they were on the right side).  The police sent him to a factory and the man there gave him addresses for just about everyone.  He had delivered only two letters before he was arrested.

Lem says that during his whole ordeal, they kept asking him if he knew George Alberts.  Of course he knew who Alberts was, Alberts was his high school teacher.  But they told him that Alberts was a spy, which made sense since he had now expatriated.  But how could they ever have known that he knew Alberts?   He accuses Sophia of taking “revenge” on him by telling the police that he was connected to Alberts.  Who else could have known they were connected but Sophia?

Sophia tries to explain, saying that Alberts and Luisa were “married.”   But like so many others, Lem cuts her off and yells at her for impugning Luisa.

And then a flashback within a flashback shows Lem and Debbie Matthews commiserating at Matthews’ house.  Sophia went to Mathews’ house to thank her for her help the night that she brought them to Jose’s garage.  But as soon as they see Sophia they rail into her.  Debbie shows off Lem’s scars and bruises and then Lem says,

They put me through two years of prisons and camps…. I told them everything I knew, but they beat me, burned me, cut me for nor not telling them things I couldn’t know….  Thanks to you my eyes were opened, Sophie….  Now I see that Civilization is at the root of it all (481).

And that’s how Lem joined the peace movement.  Sophia doesn’t believe any of it, she thinks he’s totally full of it, and she storms off.

Back to the present, Sophia tries to defend herself to Lem, but Lem says it just doesn’t matter anymore, he has let everything go.

Luisa and Sophia leave Lem.  And that’s when Sophia learns that Art Sinich is currently staying in her room.  It’s just another man who Luisa is entertaining, about which Sophia seems upset.

Luisa again compares Sophia unfavorably to Nachalo, her father. When Nacahlo heard shooting he ran toward it.  But he was no hooligan–like Ron or Sabina–who only fought for their own precious selves not for the greater good.

Sophia changes the subject and asked the $64,000 question: why were they let out of jail early?  Luisa says that George was a hero–he did research for the police he was influential and had international connections.  If they’ve been left in jail he would have made a big fuss.  [I found this explanation to be entirely reasonable yet completely unsatisfying, and I hope that it is a misdirect of some sort].

The police told Luisa she’s been arrested in a bureaucratic blunder.  And when Sophia asks if she really believed that, Luisa says of course she believed them, why wouldn’t she have believed them?:

Sophia, it’s the easiest thing in the world to be so smart twenty years after the event! Of course I believed them; I had no reason not to. And you’re not the one to be asking questions about my clearheadedness during those days! You were old enough to use your own head and draw your own conclusions — and you obviously don’t remember just how helpful you were!

And then Luisa continues with a tone that she has been pushing throughout their conversations: She’s happy to be “done” with Sophia.  She no longer wants to be her mother.  In fact, she’s always been displeased with Sophia.  Even back then she was:

A fifteen-year old girl hanging on to her mother’s coat and staring off into space like an idiot who’d lost all her brains! I was so ashamed of you!   Sabina’s gypsy mother had only been fourteen when she’d died on the barricades (486).

Sophia leaves in a funk, realizing that he has never really created anything for herself.

But the next morning is when Tina crashed in and told them of the upcoming revolution. Ted is putting everyone up, including Tissie.  So, Sabina agrees to move there right away.  Sophia says she doesn’t want to stay with Ted (Tina is not surprised), but she will go to the University.

That’s where Sophia met Pat Clesec. She asks Pat to show her what to do, but he refuses saying that people should do what they want, and Sophia reveals (More to herself than Pat):

I was terribly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean my question the way it sounded. But I’m lying.  I did mean it. All my life I’ve dreamed of the day when people would make their own decisions, yet I’ve never in my life made my own decisions.”
“Obviously not. People in a slave society reproduce their own slavery. But there are moments when they stop doing that. This is one of those moments”  (490).

Pat comes across as very intellectual and as unemotional as Sophia, and Sophia falls for him hard.  She follows him around the building looking in different rooms.  He finally decides to go into one and she asks if he knows anyone in there.  He says he doesn’t think so, why does it matter?  She asks what he’s going to do in there.  He replies that he hasn’t the vaguest idea.  And this is immensely liberating to her.

At 5 the next morning everyone goes out to a demonstration where they talk with workers.  Pat is impressed by Sophia’s manners and asks if she’s ever done this before.  She says no.  And she thrives on his adulation.  In fact, “I listened to everything he told me as attentively as I had listened to you twenty years ago” (494).  And yet despite this, she knows she doesn’t love him, she just feels desire for him.  A desire she thought she was incapable of.

Sophia calls Luisa to tell her about the revolution.  Luisa asks is Daman found her–that his classes have been called off. [To which Sophia hilariously responds: “His classes called off!  His whole world’s been called off!  The hypocritical jackass!” (495).]

Luisa says she will not walk off her job, but that she will join them as soon as her plant calls a strike.  Sophia is outraged, “The union!  Luisa, where have you been?  Don’t tell me you still think it’s not a strike unless the union calls it!” (496).

Sophia ends by saying that all kinds of workers are coming in…cabbies,  and even postal workers are talking about striking (so please send you letter to the following address across the border).  She concludes:

I’m waiting for other workers to walk in: workers from unoccupied factories, from other cities, from other continents. I’m waiting for you to walk into the council office (496).

COMMENTS

I really don’t know what to think about the whole Mirna thing.  The thing that is so confusing about it is that Yarostan wrote the letter after all that devil talk happened. And although he argued with her Mirna about the devil, he doesn’t really say anything about how crazy she is.  Or even that she needs to be looked after or anything.  I really never expected anything like this in the book.

Meanwhile Sophia’s letter is now grounded in more of a reality.  Although, again, I can’t imagine that these students will actually achieve anything.  Especially since they are all so busy talking about things that it’s hard to imagine them actually acting.

At this point I’m even more confused about how this story will end.  It feels like they are headed for something big in Sophia’s land, although given the past, I doubt Yarostan’s will come to anything.  On a more practical level, I don’t see why the letters would stop being sent, unless something major happens to them.

So I remain completely engrossed by the story, even if there are times when I want to throw the papers out the window (which, since this is a photocopied collection, would be noisy and satisfying).   And now that we’ve been through just about every depravity I can imagine, I can’t wait to find out what he’s got for us next.